Yep. Bet you have. In fact, you’ve probably seen this text on anything from banks to grocers. The words themselves are so overused that they have lost any meaning. But they are out there, creeping into your subconscious mind and waiting to jump out of your keyboard.

I’m here to remind you to stop, step back and touch your reader.

That’s right. Touch them. With words.

When your copywriting creates a scene so real that your reader literally sees, feels and lives your writing, you are touching them in ways that turn them from reader to buyer.

It is precisely the use of sensory words that make content ‘sticky’.

Add some texture

There is some amazing research out there that suggests that when someone reads a textural word (for example smooth/rough, slimy/gritty) their brain actually lights up the parts that relate to touch. Amazing!

This also holds true for words that relate to other senses too. It’s because writing in this way taps into your reader’s emotions. They actually feel something from your writing. They may feel happy or sad, disappointed, intrigued, afraid, ashamed or delighted.

Whatever they feel, they’ll remember your words and your brand.

How to get sensory with your copywriting

Go through your text and seek out bland words. Replace them immediately with words that are sensory or emotional.

Set yourself a limit to the number of adjectives you use before nouns. Instead of a cool, cloudy, calm day, try to choose a single word that describes the day accurately. (Dull day, perhaps?)

Be ruthless with yourself and then go through your writing to get rid of as many adverbs as possible.

Remove all meaningless words (actually, really, like, etc).

Try to be surprising in your use of metaphors.

But….

Don’t over do it.

Too much of anything can ruin a good thing.Your job is not to produce as many words as possible – anyone can do that. Your job is to do what most will be blown away by – painting a picture in the reader’s mind with as few words as possible.

That ability to choose just the write word is what sets good copywriters from run-of-the-mill writers.

Oh! One last tip.

If you do use a thesaurus to find choice words, please make doubly sure that the word you choose shares the meaning you intend – they are not always interchangeable.

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